The End of the Year

It's the end of the year, and that can only mean one thing: we are fat, dumb, and happy. OK, and tired. Oh, and sore. And so, so ready for 2008. . .

The boys pose for their Christmas Eve picture in front of the tree.

Jacob asked Santa Claus to do another scavenger hunt for them on Christmas morning, and to "make it harder". Here they are solving it together before they got their clues to the location of their big gift. It required a calendar, a calculator, a world map, and a dictionary. Hard enough for you, Jacob?

Sammy and Tracy during the cousin gift exchange in the afternoon. The white elephant exchange was rousing good fun, too.

On the 27th we trekked up to Azusa. Kevin was jazzed because he is finally old enough to decorate floats this year. He and his friend Thomas thought climbing on the scaffolding and getting glue on them was totally cool. Until night time when the temperatures dropped...

The detail area is for those of us who want to stay a little closer to the ground (and closer to the heater). A tedious job that only those over the age of 20 actually ask to do. This ball will be on the China Airlines float - it's only halfway done in this picture, and I don't mean the front half.

Judy, Andrea, me, and Cindy. Cindy and I are smiling cause we get to leave prior to midnight, the other two are smiling cause they're only in hour 10 of their 48+ hour shift.

Tonight we bang pans outside, and will listen to the fireworks from Knotts. Tomorrow we root for USC, and pig out on junk food one last time before heading to Curves. Right, Cindy??

Getting Ready for Christmas

Lots of stuff happening the week before Christmas. Even though RJ and I spent four out of five days at home this week with different kids being home sick on different days, it was still pretty busy.

Cub Scouts and Boy Scouts both had their Christmas party on Monday night. Too bad that two of my three kids in scouts were sick and couldn't attend.

Kevin had his concert on Tuesday - lots of brand-newbies playing Good King Wenchelas and Merrily We Roll Along. (You gotta start somewhere with 2 classes of students who just picked out their instruments in September.) Kevin's in the back row, second one in, playing trumpet. I wonder if the girl in front of him in a short skirt and sandals got sick this week since it was pouring rain and freezing cold outside.


I went to my work holiday party on Thursday from 4-6pm, then had Sammy's concert at 7pm. Would have worked out fine if we had started our white elephant gift exchange prior to 6:45 and it wasn't raining on the drive home. Fortunately, Sam's group wasn't first up. They played some really killer hard music; "Sleigh Ride" earning the adjective of "evil" from the kids as they thought it was hard to play. I thought the other stuff was harder. The concert was held at Kennedy High's new $8m auditorium - I think more was spent on that one building than every other school project in the district. I don't care, at least we weren't crowded, and I didn't have a trombone playing over my shoulder like last year.

And the final sign that Christmas is around the corner - the annual Santa visit in the neighborhood handing out candy canes courtesy of the local real estate agent. Kevin wasn't in the picture as he was snow camping, I mean freezing, at San Gorgonio with the Scouts.

Only 3 shopping days left!!

Week of Dec 3

Went to Disneyland one night last week for the annual Family Christmas party - took the traditional picture in front of the gigantor tree on Main St. I looked at last year's picture, and the jacket with the reflective tape was on Jacob. Hopefully next year we won't be so blinded cause it will be too small for any of the boys to wear.

They hung these really cool icicle lights on the castle, and after fooling around with my camera's settings, got this picture:

And this one of Small World:

On Thursday night we went to see Matthew perform the 2nd grade Christmas program at school. He's one of the presents waaaaay up there on stage. See him? You don't? Cause he's RIGHT THERE -}

Next week is Kevin and Sammy's concerts, so I guess I'll have to do my shopping now while I can...

Nov 23

Those who can't sit in the press box to judge. . . .
Resort to producing the event . . .

Saturday, Nov 17 was the Savanna Field Tournament, and since I am the sucker who misses my days in Special Events, this was my second year as Tournament Chair. After many hours of coordinating rentals, helping organize volunteers, taking inventory, shopping for everything under the sun, writing programs, making and taking countless phone calls, and overseeing all the details of a 14+ hour event that had over 7,000 folks attend, my son hands me this note attached to a flower. I might make it a third year. . .

Nov 13

So it's been a whole month, maybe more like six weeks now, and LOTS of things have been going on beside the usual school and homework routine.

Sammy has had his share of football games and performances:

Also went out to dinner with Kathleen and Cris, spending a few hours at TGI Fridays hogging a table and catching up. After figuring that two of the last three times we saw each other was at funerals, we actually made and kept a dinner date. Only took us 8 weeks to coordinate and fit it into our schedules!

Matthew's cub scout troop came over last week to the house and we decorated cookies for Halloween. It's not any one of the activities for a badge or a trail, or whatever they call them in Wolves, but we did it just for fun. There were six kids and four adults all crowded around the table getting frosting and sprinkles everywhere.

Matthew also has Flat Stanley's cousin Flat Matt visiting Karen in WA. He helped Michael with the backhoe and planting two Christmas trees for Grandma Elta and Grandpa John. He has been sending emails to Matt on his adventures, which Matt loves to read.

Jacob got some new pets - Bob, Steve, and Spikey the goldfish - who swim around two of the shells from mom's bathroom. Snoopy is shown here welcoming them to the house. She sleeps with them every night, making sure they aren't lonely.

Lastly, the four guys got dressed up to go out for Halloween. We walked over a couple blocks where there are a few haunted/spooky houses and hundreds of kids trick-or-treating. We had our own spooky ghost, a ninja, Darth Vader and my own favorite "Green Burrito".